Welcome to chair4medicine

The chair4medicine International Conference focused on the selection of academic medical chairs worldwide and took place in Zurich, Switzerland, December 3-6, 2014.

The idea for this meeting was born out of numerous stories told by many of our colleagues from all around the world that converge to the same point: the hopes and visions of institutions selecting a academic medical chair have been shattered by failure of the new faculty to integrate, to provide the expected service or due to personal incompatibilities. The impact of selecting the right candidate for an academic leadership position is tremendous; not only for the recruiting institution, but also for an entire field of medicine, the education of a new generation of doctors, and the advent of relevant discoveries saving lives.

Therefore, we initiated a project under the patronage of the University of Zurich with the aim to establish an evidence-based standardized tool, that might be internationally applicable, yet flexible enough to be adapted to the local requirements and legal restrictions.

The methodology of this international meeting followed the Zurich-Danish model of consensus conference. It involved a nine panel of experts, which discussed the different topics, while an independent jury of 11 members evaluated the statements and wrote the recommendations, which are published in Nature online. Based on these recommendations an algorithm will be developed that can be adjusted to meet local conditions and help identify the best candidate for a chair position.

The material covering this conference is located on three sites:
1) A comment published in Nature,
2) The recommendations from the Jury published in Nature online, 
3) The full text of the nine panels and the material of the the special lectures given during the Conference in Zurich on the website.

We believe that the results of this conference will contribute to a better and more transparent election of academic medical chairs worldwide, and we hope you will find valuable information in our homepage.

Pierre-Alain Clavien, MD, PhD
Chair, Local Organizing Committee